United States v. Reynolds’s Empirical Analysis
1970
Citation profile
148 federal appellate · 27 district · 143 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 596 later decisions (26 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Blanchette v. Connecticut General Insurance Corporations (1974), Nixon v. Administrator of General Services (1977)
148 federal appellate · 27 district · 143 state decisions — followed in 29 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedUnited States v. 811.92 Acres of Land (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 16 U.S.C. § 831X
Relies on United States v. Miller · Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States · United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co. · Bauman v. Ross · Shoemaker v. United States
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 596 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The question then is whether the respondents' lands were probably within the scope of the project from the time the Government was committed to it. If they were not, but were merely adjacent lands, the subsequent enlargement of the project to include them ought not to deprive the respondents of the value added in the meantime by the proximity of the improvement. If, on the other hand, they were, the Government ought not to pay any increase in value arising from the known fact that the lands probably would be condemned. The owners ought not to gain by speculating on probable increase in value due to the Government's activities.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The rule does not require a showing that the land ultimately taken was actually specified in the original plans for the project. It need only be shown that during the course of the planning or original construction it became evident that land so situated would probably be needed for the public use.””
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Layne v. Speight · Fuller v. Rahill“within ground rules established by the trial judge.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.